Student Mission Teams Serve Short-Term
Over a Long Weekend in California
FOR TWO SPRING MISSION events, Mission LA and Quest, Seattle Pacific
University students helped raise their own funds to spend Memorial
Day weekend volunteering in two of
California’s poorest districts.

About 80 women drove to San Francisco’s Tenderloin
District as part of the third annual Quest trip, organized by the Falconettes,
SPU’s women’s service club. Meanwhile, about 60 men participated in Mission LA.
They drove from Seattle for 24 hours straight, arriving in one of the most notorious
areas of America, in a district of Pasadena, near Los Angeles. The trek is a
longstanding tradition of the Centurions, the men’s service organization at Seattle
Pacific.

Labeled by the press as “seedy,” “impoverished” and “dangerous,” both
sites house Christian mission centers that serve their neighborhoods. At the
San Francisco Rescue Mission, the Quest team helped distribute clothes, serve
meals and witness to people on the streets at night. “This all started when some
women students wanted to do something similar to Mission LA,” says Jan Higbee ’85,
Falconettes advisor. “They make the trip by themselves and do amazing work.”

A
Pasadena house that was once owned by a drug kingpin has been transformed
into the Harambee Christian Family Center, which Mission LA has
returned to for six years in a row. Some students went to work
painting fences, while others did yardwork. Still others repaired
missionary homes on the same street.

Benefits of the trip spread
beyond the Harambee Center, says John Keatley ’02, who photographed
the journey. “Neighbors saw us coming in, showing them love and taking responsibility,” he
says. “And it was a good experience for the mission team, too. Students from
very different groups around campus spent a weekend hanging out and laughing
together.”